Comment by swatcoder
2 years ago
When I perform your search, I get legitimate results at the top, and I don't see the specific app from the Reddit thread. But about at about rank #7, I see an app that uses a distorted form of the same logo, a different unfamiliar publisher, a slightly altered title and a similar smattering of only a few reviews.
It sounds like somebody is burning developer accounts to keep reposting the scam app. Not unlike people being banned from a website and then resubscribing with a different email or through a VPN or whatever. It slipping through into your results isn't so much plain neglect as it is an arms race that Apple is on the losing side of this time.
Robust algorithmic ranking and moderation at scale is a myth, though, and you can find this happen pretty much everywhere. This one will probanly get squashed with some near-term update to their algorithm, and then get compromised again sometime later since crypto is so ripe for scamming.
You can't escape personal due diligence and "it was top ranked!" has never been that.
> You can't escape personal due diligence and "it was top ranked!" has never been that.
Apple continually makes claims that the closed ecosystem is essential to the safety of their customers, that they have a robust review process, and that their customers choose them because of the safety they provide. Apple should stop repeating these claims if they are not, in fact, reliable protection against scams.
Posted above the screen recording: https://streamable.com/y5nhy7
> You can't escape personal due diligence and "it was top ranked!" has never been that.
On one hand that's a fair point and I should've known better. OTOH I think it is legit to trust top app store search results to return quality apps, especially if there is a massive disparity between their quality. The scam app has obvious repetitive spam reviews. The developer's website is terrible and the submit button doesn't even work. This is basic quality control on apple's part. If every single app store user needs to manually vet every single app they install to the proper extent there would be a fraction of a fraction of the installs and respectively, a fraction of a fraction of the revenue.
Consider the extent of lawsuits between apple and companies with app store apps - does it not strike you that apple protects that revenue stream? Wouldn't it make sense to give app store users a sense of trust in the top search results?